Doctors link low blood pressure to chronic fatigue

September 27, 1995
Web posted: 12:54 a.m. EDT

Medical Correspondent Jeff Levine

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- Doctors have been largely
baffled by chronic fatigue syndrome. But now researchers
have developed a treatment for this disabling condition. A
type of low blood pressure appears to be the key.

Katie Lucas was so disabled by chronic fatigue syndrome, she
could barely get out of bed, or perform simple tasks. "I
remember one occasion having to take out a calculator to
subtract twelve from thirty-two," she said. "That's pretty
bad."

An estimated 1 million patients in the U.S. suffer from this
frustrating disorder, most of them women.

"There's no diagnostic test to establish the diagnosis, and
there's no known treatment for this condition," said Hugh
Calkins, a doctor developing treatment for the disease at
Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.

Based on their work with adolescents, Calkins and his
colleagues began to suspect a link between chronic fatigue
and a sudden drop in blood pressure. The experience caused
the teen-agers to faint and left them weak.

The Johns Hopkins team duplicated the results in 23 adults.
As in this demonstration, the chronic fatigue patients were
strapped down to a tilt table, then gradually moved upright
to a 70 degree angle. (791k QuickTime movie)

"At minute 43 you can see the patient's blood pressure drop
suddenly from 125 down to 45 and their heart rate dropped
from about 110 to 80, and the patient passed out," Calkins
said.

The good news is that this drastic blood pressure drop can be
reversed by boosting water and salt intake and taking drugs.
The Hopkins doctors say about 75 percent of the study group
got better.

"Not everybody gets better on this form of treatment, that's
one thing we'd like to emphasize, but those who do often have
very dramatic improvements," said Peter Rowe, Calkins'
colleague at Johns Hopkins.

"I'm running up the stairs and skipping stairs, which I never
did before," said chronic fatigue patient Carolyn Boies.
"It's the first time I felt well in probably four years."
(85k AIFF sound)

But doctors admit they need to do a bigger study, comparing
the treatment to a dummy pill, something that is being done
in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health.

"They know what they're doing, but their observations need to
be born out in larger studies, and the therapies they're
proposing need to be tested," said Dr. Stephen Straus of the
National Institutes of Health

The Johns Hopkins researchers stress that they haven't
developed a cure for chronic fatigue syndrome. But finally
there appears to be a treatment that can revitalize many who
suffer from this mysterious condition.